


Written Somewhere No One Sees

by Vitreous_Humor



Series: Fairest and Fallen [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Battle, Face Slapping, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Memory Loss, Other, Violence, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 08:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20171617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: “Fallen, are you hurt?” Gabriel asked, landing a few feet short of Beelzebub. Their wings, dove gray, love gray, dusted the ground before vanishing.“Fairest, do not ask such stupid questions,” ze responded.***Gabriel and Beelzebub take care of some fractious subordinates, go for a walk, and fight about the creation of the moon.





	Written Somewhere No One Sees

Heaven and Hell agreed on very little, but one thing that they had settled between them was that Armageddon would come in its own time and place. Both sides knew in bone and flesh and pinion that they would be brought together again, angel against demon on the sacred plain. They knew that this time, there would be no place left to hide, no place to fall _to. _The fight would go on until the matter was finally settled, oblivion for the loser, whatever was left for the winner.

And that meant that until the day actually came: _hands off. _

They couldn't stop the odd fistfight behind a barn, the sly shove off the mountain top. It was inevitable with Earth as the middle ground, where neither side seemed really able to command dominion or even establish a real foothold.

Some things could slide, but when Beelzebub heard of the skirmish at Meggido, that was something different.

Ze came up through the side of the mountain in a swell of lava, looking down at the plateau beneath zir with growing upset. It was perhaps a hundred demons and an equal number of angels, weapons flashing in the setting sun, howls of fury and hurt whirling in the wind.

_Why, these little brats, _Beelzebub thought angrily. _Just can't wait. Well, if they want to roar, let them be heard._

Down on the plain, every angel and every demon shuddered as deep and resonant buzzing shook the air, shook the ground, shook their bones. It was enough to make some of them drop their weapons, the buzz running straight into their hands, and then Beelzebub was charging through them, half-flying, half-falling into their midst with a spear too long for zir height in zir hands.

Ze ignored the ones in white, not caring whether they saw zir and skidded away or lifted their weapons for a try at glory. They couldn't hurt zir in any way that mattered. Instead ze focused on zir own, slitting throats and splitting heads with the calm and precise speed of a fisherman gutting his catch. Bodies ruined beyond repair, the demons themselves would end up back in Hell, where ze would deal with them personally and unpleasantly.

Once the demons figured out who was on the field and how very fucked they were, they turned tail. Facing Heaven's forces was one thing; facing a furious Beelzebub was another. They took flight, scattering to the four corners of the globe, some covering their faces in the hopes that ze hadn't yet seen them. Eventually, they would slink back to Hell to take their punishment, but for now, ze was fine with letting them go.

Of course, just because the demons fled didn't mean that the angels did. As the last bit of sunlight left the plain, Beelzebub let the last unlucky corpse drop to the bloody ground and realized that they stood at the center of a field of angels. Some had flown away, but the vast majority turned like some sort of great feathery beast scenting its prey.

“_Don't_,” ze snapped, but angels weren't known for their listening ability. Instead, they fell on zir, screaming like eagles even as ze dropped zir spear and started wrenching wings and snapping arms like twigs. It wasn't Armageddon, and ze had no authority to kill Heaven's forces on this field.

_Can't kill them, can't really hurt them, _ze thought grimly. _What a mess..._

Ze couldn't get the clearance or the breathing room to open a way back down to hell, and for every angel ze threw aside, there were another two to take their place. They were mad things, as zir own demons were mad things, and they had a relentlessness ze recognized very well.

Just as ze tossed an angel straight into the cliff face, lightning flashed down from the clear night sky. It struck the ground with a terrible crash, and out of that crash came a roar, and out of that roar came words.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?”

The hairs on the back of Beelzebub's neck rose as the earth shook under zir feet. Suddenly angels that had been willing to fight a prince of hell were taking to the air like so many startled pigeons, and while most escaped, others were pitched hard into the rocky cliff face, where they fell moaning and broken to the ground.

Beelzebub had the time and space to leave, but instead ze stood zir ground. It would feel too much like fleeing to do otherwise, though Beelzebub had fallen, ze had never fled. Instead ze waited, drawing zirself up to zir full height and watching the angels break under the onslaught of the Archangel Gabriel.

They towered half a head over most of the other angels, and their fury was incandescent, dying down only a little when the only angels left on the plain were down on the ground and groaning, and the only ones left standing at all were Gabriel and Beelzebub.

“Fallen, are you hurt?” they asked, landing a few feet short of Beelzebub. Their wings, dove gray, love gray, dusted the ground before vanishing.

“Fairest, do not ask such stupid questions,” ze responded.

A slight smile twisted Gabriel's mouth.

“Right. No one here has the firepower, do they?”

“Certainly not.”

Gabriel looked at the angels with wrenched wings, some stunned with pain, others still trying to stand.

“Your work?”

“I wouldn't let anyone else claim it,” ze said, and Gabriel nodded shortly, clapping their hands and turning to the wounded angels.

“All right,” they snapped. “Play time's over. Those who can move, grab up those who can't. Double time back up; Michael's waiting for you, and believe me you won't like what they have in store.”

They turned to Beelzebub.

“It's the stocks for this lot,” they said, as if they expected zir to be pleased. “We're thinking a year for every angel involved in this mess. What are you going to do with yours?”

“That is none of your business.”

Gabriel frowned.

“You're not letting them get off free after this.”

“Hell is not beholden to Heaven, fairest,” ze said. “And punishment in Hell is a private thing. It is not for Heaven's eyes.”

Gabriel snorted, shaking their head.

“You won't teach them a thing like that, you know. We've always had good luck with clipped wings, public humiliation, that sort of thing. It sticks better.”

“Hell is different,” Beelzebub replied, feeling no need to elaborate.

To Beelzebub's surprise, Gabriel bent down and picked up the spear from where it lay on the ground. Instead of handing it back, they regarded it curiously.

“I remember this one, don't I?”

“It is not my business what you remember or do not remember.”

Gabriel gave Beelzebub a slight smile.

“It _was_ one of mine,” they said. “Azazel made it for my grip, but I always thought it was too light. I saw you, right before. I wondered how you had gotten it.”

They handed the spear back to zir. Beelzebub almost told them that Heaven could expect no answers from Hell, but then ze realized that they had not actually asked any questions.

“I went to your rooms before the fighting started. I wanted it. I stole it.”

“I wonder why you went to my rooms.”

“Keep wondering,” Beelzebub said shortly.

“I will,” Gabriel said.

They both had tasks to return to in their respective places, but for some reason, they both hesitated.

“The moon is rising soon,” Beelzebub said. “Come walking with me.”

“Temptation, fallen?”

The spear was too slight for Gabriel's hands, but perfect for zirs. One moment it was upright in zir grasp, the next the mercilessly sharp point touched the base of the archangel's throat.

“I am no tempter, fairest. Not me.”

Gabriel didn't flinch, only reached up to take hold of the shaft of the spear close to the blade, moving it aside and down. They absently rubbed away the smudge of blood it left behind.

“Only an invitation?”

Beelzebub pulled zir spear away, something sore in zir throat and in the center of zir chest.

“It is nothing now. Forget it.”

Gabriel tilted their head, smiling in a way that they likely thought handsome.

“All right then. Fallen, the moon is rising. Will you come walking with me?”

Gabriel offered zir their hand, a challenging look in their violet eyes, and more out of pride than anything else, Beelzebub told zirself, ze took it, letting zir spear melt away again.

They walked down the mountain and out among the dunes as the moon rose up round and lovely in the sky. Any human who saw them would have been blinded on the spot at witnessing such an unnatural and unlucky thing, the archangel and the abomination walking side by side. They kept their wings in, and instead used their feet, Gabriel offering Beelzebub their hand when the way grew steep.

On the last dune, Gabriel did not give zir hand back, instead holding it gently as they stood on the tallest rise. The moon overhead was young in those days, her face unmarked and smooth as a silver sequin pinned to a woman's night-dark robe.

“That's mine,” Gabriel said, nodding at the moon. “Isn't it beautiful?”

“I am sure it is not yours,” Beelzebub replied with more than a little pique “God said it was for the night people, the late shift, the insomniac and the mad and the lonely.”

“It _is _mine,” Gabriel insisted. “I'm the one who roughed it out of silica and carbon, I'm the one who dusted it with regolith so it would hold every touch, every footprint and every kiss. If you look in its heart, my name's written there.”

Beelzebub yanked zir hand back from Gabriel, glaring at them and possessed of a childish urge to stomp zir bare foot on the sand.

“Just because you carve your name on it like an awful little boy with a pen knife does not make it yours,” ze hissed. “God said it belonged to everyone in the night. She _said._”

Gabriel shrugged.

“Well, they can _look _at it,” they said generously. “They can read by its light and conduct their little sins and salvations under its eye. They can use it, I'll let them. But it's still mine.”

“_Stop_ saying such a thing!”

“Because _God _wouldn't like it?” Gabriel asked, and Beelzebub almost decided to forget that there was a time ordained when ze would meet Gabriel in battle, a time when it would be appropriate to slit them from groin to throat and let that hot golden ichor cover zir hands. Never a time like the present, Crowley always said before wiggling back up to earth, and right then, Beelzebub could see the snake's point.

“Because it's not true!” Beelzebub snapped. “It's not yours, you weren't even the only one who worked on it. It's not _fair _to say that it's yours..”

“So who else's is it?”

“The sad, the mad-”

“No. Who else's name is written on its heart? Who insisted on a heart made of iron, wrapped in heat like a thousand year summer? Whose name is right next to mine?”

Beelzebub froze. In the darkness, Gabriel's eyes glinted like sparks from some warlock's fire. They looked like a handsome man, but they never were, any more than Beelzebub was a plague-stricken woman.

Gabriel waited, but Beelzebub turned away. Ze did not owe Heaven anything, and ze was better than some archangel's silly idea of a joke.

“Ah, so you agree. The moon is mine.”

Beelzebub spun like a top, and the open-palmed slap ze landed on Gabriel's cheek would have felled an elephant. Instead, it only turned their head slightly, and their violet eyes never wavered.

“Mine!” ze shrieked. “It's mine, mine, mine!”

The next moment, ze was in Gabriel's arms, held to a body that smelled like the cooling of dying star, a breath of winter.

“It _is _you,” Gabriel said, and the only thing that kept Beelzebub from striking them again was the raw and wounded sound in the archangel's voice. It was a pain that a demon could eat for a thousand years, and it made zir still.

“Yes, fairest,” Beelzebub said quietly. “Let me go.”

Reluctantly, Gabriel did as ze said, stepping back with their hands shoved deep into their pockets.

“It's still there, you know,” Gabriel said. “Right next to mine. When they struck the names of the fallen from the rosters, they must have missed it, so there it stayed. There it _stays_, the name of no angel in Heaven, the name of someone I'm not allowed to remember.”

Beelzebub lifted zir chin.

“My name,” ze agreed, and from the box where ze had locked zir own memories came a frantic knocking, white wings beating from within, small fists bloodied from the impenetrable steel sides.

Gabriel reached for zir, and against zir better judgment, ze permitted it, letting their fingers skate across the unblemished bridge of zir nose to the flush of raw proud flesh on the left side. They weren't a human to be disgusted or afraid. They were an archangel, indifferent to the flesh, obsessed with the spirit.

“I forgot you,” Gabriel murmured. “But you. You remember, don't you?”

“What else would the fall mean, if we could not remember?”

“Fallen, what were you doing in my rooms the day the Great War began?”

“Fairest, I owe you no answers.”

Beelzebub took two steps back, the blaze of pain from Gabriel enough to sustain a demonic army, enough to warm zir for a thousand years.

Beelzebub thought they reached for zir as the sand went molten underneath zir feet, and then ze was gone, leaving shards of cooling desert glass in zir wake. Perhaps Gabriel hurt their hands reaching after zir, cutting their fingers to shreds.

Ze hoped so.

At least they could remember that.

**Author's Note:**

> *One recent theory is that the core of the moon is iron, making it the second densest moon in the solar system. This fandom makes me learn so many cool things!
> 
> *Oh yeah, look at that. All the writing I need to be doing right now. And yet.
> 
> *I don't learn anything about these two until I start writing about this. The revelations for this one were kind of painful.
> 
> *I guess this is a series now?
> 
> *Again, a fandom that gives me a 6000 year old relationship with everything I could dream of to play with, and here I am.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Written Somewhere No One Sees](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20477717) by [jellyfishfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfire/pseuds/jellyfishfire)


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